Week 2 - Wordle Ideas

After you have experienced creating a WORDLE, post a comment about anything you have observed about Wordle or your ideas for how you might use it instructionally. See the examples provided below. When you are ready to post your thoughts about Wordle, remember to click on EDIT THIS PAGE at the top right, then click in the next available row in the table to type your name and your one sentence idea or thought about Wordle.
If all the rows have been used, click in the last row and then click on the table icon (). Then, choose Row, Add Row, Add below to add another row for your entry.

BE SURE TO SAVE!
Revisit this page to see what others have posted-save good ideas to use in your classroom!

Participant Name	Ideas about using a Web 2.0 Technology like Wordle
Donna Pepper	I like the way words that I have used more than once appear larger since it helps me get a visual of the "big ideas" in my writing.
Cheryl Ward	Paste in the content of a famous speech and see if students know the speech, study the words used most frequently, is that why the speech was famous?
Tina/Coventry	This reminds me of something I used to do to my locker in high school. I'd cut words out of magazines to make a collage for the inside of my locker. Those collages spoke volumes about me. This is a neat way to creatively present thoughts.
Judy/Barberton	This is a fun/creative, yet useful tool. Teachers could use this an "All About Me" poster at the start of the school year by having the students write an introduction of themselves then paste in Wordle. It could also be used for introduction to new vocabulary by posting the synonyms of the new vocabulary word.
Phil Faires	The students could use moodle to create a list of Math vocabulary words. Do one at the beginning of a unit and one after the unit to show what they have learned. Maybe do one "perfect squares." From Donna - Phil, I'm sure you meant to use Wordle instead of Moodle in your first sentence but just wanted to make sure no one gets confused.
Hester/Warrensville	My first thought was "word wall", geometry terms in a wordle, algebra terms in a wordle, statistics terms, math operations, etc.
Bryan/Canton City	This is my first year teaching 8th grade science. In the past I always taught freshman. So now I am teaching a grade where my students will take the OAA Test. I can already see they struggle with content vocabulary. A science word wall would be a great tool to use here with wordle.
Genna/Focus Learning Academy	I think this would be a great tool to introduce a lesson or unit. It would be a way to get students engaged and trying to find the connection between the words. I could create a wordle to introduce a lesson and then later in the year, the students could create their own with what they have learned individually. I think this is a fun, innovative way to get students thinking about a new topic and trying to understand how the words all connect with each other. I'm a big fan!
Wanda/Canton City	Right now in our school we our focusing on what we call our "Problem of Practice" and I think a wordle would be a great idea to use with my staff to see what they could come for the problem of practice.
Tom/Fostoria	It looked like a lot of curvy words and color. I am not sure what it could be used for, but I could use some suggestion for an administrator could do. From Donna - Tom, I haven't been an administrator but wonder if you might use it sometime if you're working with your staff to identify priorities or issues that keep coming up. Collecting input from a group and putting it all together in a Wordle might yield some interesting results.
Mike/Vinton Middle	I observed one of our teachers using wordle in a class and like the way that words used most oftern were in larger print.
Cindy?Sandusky City Schools	I love Wordle and included it in my lesson plans for the week only to find we are blocked!!!! Darn! It is way fun to introduce topics or vocabulary...and be creative. My students are working a project to explain the exposition and resolution of a story. I had encouraged them to use this tool. Unfortunately we were blocked. So my next step is to see if we can unblock a few of these, voice thread included. Stay tuned.
Tiffany Huerster Bedford City Schools	I really like the idea of wordle! It would be a great way to introduce vocabulary or to boil down content to just the very essential components!
Sarah/ Ravenna City Schools	Wordle makes introducing or reviewing vocbulary visual and hands on if you could somehow modify on the smartboard or bulletin board to pullout/reveal the defenition of the word once you click on it or pull the tab. It's interesting to look at. I also like that if you copy a bunch of text to paste the most used words will be largest.
Michael Windham	I would start a wordle by using an author and having students add words that identify the author's style and content or add other authors who have similar style and theme
David/Barberton	There is a site visualthesaurus.com that graphically shows word relationships. I think wordle could be used to help vocabulary acquisition. My wife teaches 4th grade and pushes her students to come up with different words for describing common words such as "good", "nice", and "bad". I think posters made of synonyms could help students be more descriptive in their writing. They could be in charge of making new ones when they need it in their own writing.
Matt/RULH	I have used wordles before in the classroom. I feel they are a great way for me to teach 200+ year old documents. Before Wordle I would have students read the documents and they would get stuck on the old english. Now I don't have to worry about that, I can pop the document into a wordle (probably not what the framers were thinking would happen to these documents) and it allows for the students to see what are the important ideas. Then I have the students read the document and I feel they have a much easier time understanding it.
Tim Murray/Fostoria	I have experienced Wordle in several graduate classes that have utilized this program for brain storming ideas. I think this would be a great tool for students to lead into utilizing a graphic organizer for writing assignments, also being a former science teacher, I think it would help with understanding scientific method, but not limited to that.
Erik Thorson Chaney	I think this would be a great way for students to learn vocabulary or use it to discuss a book or article that they have read.
Henrietta Williams Chaney	This was the first time I have ever done a Wordle. Very good tool for power of suggestion. I believe this would be a good way to remember vocabulary and key words to remember events.
Rachel Robinette Crenshaw	This was my second time seeing wordle; it was introduced to us by our building's literacy coach. I think it could be good for vocabulary exposure. However, I think it has a slightly limited purpose. I see my students being more caught up in the visual appeal of their creation rather than the content and meaning of the vocabulary included. I think it would be a great extention to a vocabulary lesson, but probably not the mainstay of the lesson.
Quatrice James	I think this would be a cool way to introduce new vocabulary words to a new lesson or to re-introduce words so that they are not forgotten!